Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is charging ahead with a radical Pentagon power grab as part of a plan to dramatically overhaul the military and downsize major headquarters overseas.
Sources say Hegseth is on track to slash the number of top generals and admirals, representing decades of combined experience, while also scaling top-level military headquarters around the world down from 11 to just eight, the Washington Post reports.
Critics argue the changes serve to centralize decision-making and weaken regional military leaders’ autonomy, giving more authority to Pentagon leadership and, by extension, to Hegseth and the White House.
Concerns have also been raised at the prospect of diminished oversight, as the plans have not yet been fully shared with Congress even though existing laws require the Pentagon to provide detailed cost and strategic impact assessments before moving forward.
The plan is in line with the new national security strategy released by the White House earlier this month, which declared that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”
Sources with knowledge of the latest Pentagon plans said Hegseth’s moves align closely with those priorities, part of President Donald Trump’s wider campaign pledge to reduce U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.
Opponents say the overhaul will only serve to place U.S. overseas interests at greater risk and increase domestic vulnerability at a time of mounting global insecurity.
“The world isn’t getting any less complicated,” Chuck Hagel, defense secretary under the Obama administration, told the Post. “You want commands that have the capability of heading off problems before they become a big problem, and I think you lose some of that when you unify or consolidate too many.”
The planned shakeup also comes as Hegseth has faced near-constant scrutiny for what his critics describe as unmitigated chaos on his watch.
Accusations of poor management have focused largely on repeat firings and purges of senior aides, including the abrupt dismissal of the Navy’s chief of staff in October. Officials have also reportedly been subjected to random polygraphs and NDAs in a wider attempt to stamp out leaks of embarrassing intel from inside the department.
Sweeping, restrictive new media policies resulted in a mass walkout of credentialed reporters, who were then replaced by podcasters and online pundits widely seen as mouthpieces for the MAGA movement.
Critics also accuse Hegseth of sidelining and antagonizing seasoned advisers over deadly strikes on alleged narcotrafficking boats in the Caribbean. Legal experts have questioned the legality of these strikes, with Hegseth accused of potentially committing a war crime in a “double-tap” strike that killed survivors.
Information security has also been a consistent source of concern, beginning with the now-notorious “Signalgate” scandal in March that saw Hegseth share sensitive, possibly classified details of military operations with a group chat to which a journalist had been unwittingly added.
Amid this backdrop, critics have accused Hegseth of trying to create a distraction by targeting Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly for his apparent criticism of the Pentagon.
Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, sparked fury among conservative figures last month when he participated in a video reminding active-duty servicemembers that they can disobey unlawful orders. The video was circulated by six Democratic lawmakers, all of them former members of the military.
Trump called the clip “treason” and suggested those lawmakers should be executed, and Hegseth is reportedly now pushing ahead with an “official command investigation” that could see Kelly recalled to active duty to face court-martial proceedings.
Kelly’s attorney has warned that any such action would amount to an “unconstitutional and an extraordinary abuse of power.”
“If the executive branch were to move forward in any forum—criminal, disciplinary or administrative—we will take all appropriate legal action on Senator Kelly’s behalf to halt the Administration’s unprecedented and dangerous overreach,” attorney Paul Fishman wrote in a letter to the Pentagon on Monday.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Defense Department for comment on this story.
The post Pentagon Pete Plots Cull of Top Generals in Major Power Grab appeared first on The Daily Beast.
